Just because you don’t see it now, doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Crabgrass can be a real problem for lawns in our area. They are annual plants, and one plant is capable of producing 150,000 seeds per season. The seeds germinate in the late spring and early summer and outcompete the domesticated lawn grasses and expand outward in a circle up to 12 inches in diameter. In the fall when the plants die they leave large voids in the lawn. The voids then become prime areas for the crabgrass seeds to germinate the following season.

Crabgrass

Once it becomes established, Crabgrass can be very difficult to control. One of the best defenses against this yearly invasion is the use of pre-emergent herbicide in late winter/early spring. The application of pre-emergent creates a barrier in the soil that blocks a key enzyme in the plant as it begins to germinate. This barrier effectively prevents the crabgrass from germinating while leaving established grass unaffected.

If you have a fescue lawn, this is a critical step in ensuring that your lawn gets off to a good start and will greatly reduce the occurrence of summer grassy weeds in your turf. Putting down pre-emergent will save you the time and expensive chemicals later on. Summertime should be spent enjoying your lawn and not spent battling weeds. Here’s to a weed free 2013!